GETTING STARTED

by John Follesdal

Researching your family tree can be a favorite hobby or a frustrating chore.The key to
success is laying a good foundation and proceeding carefully backwards in time, generation by generation. Using the
following step by step approach is the best guarantee for making your research go as smoothly as possible.

1) Read a book or two

Many good books have been written on the subject of how to get started with genealogy research.
You can either purchase one at your local bookstore, or borrow one from your local library. Your local library probably has
an entire section of genealogy books. It can also arrange for you to borrow books from other libraries through a program
called Inter-Library Loan (ILL). Reading a "How to get started" book will give you some guidance on:

what types of sources are used in genealogy research (census records, vital records, etc.);

how you can obtain these records; and

some of the methods that are used in genealogy research.

As I point out below, your initial focus should be on your immediate ancestors-- those who
lived here in the United States. Finding out as much as possible about these ancestors will save you a great deal of time
and frustration when you "leap the pond" and start searching through Norwegian sources. As the LDS Family History Library
points out in its Research Outline for Norway: "Generally you must know the specific town where your Norwegian ancestor was
born before beginning research in Norway." The approach that I have outlined below is designed with this admonition in
mind.

In addition to reading a couple of books about genealogy, I would also recommend that you
obtain and carefully read the following LDS (Mormon) genealogy research outlines:

The research outline for the United States;

The research outline for the state that your immigrant ancestor lived in when he or she arrived here in the US; and

The research outline for Norway.

These outlines are available for a small fee from your local LDS (Mormon) Family History Center (FHC). (To locate the
nearest FHC look in your yellow pages under "Churches - Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints). As an alternative, you can
print these outlines out for free from the LDS FamilySearch web site - under
Research Guidance.

In addition, I would recommend that you obtain Finn A. Thomsen's The Beginner's Guide to Norwegian Genealogical
Research. This is also available at your local LDS Family History Center or from the publisher: Thomsen's Genealogical
Center, P.O. Box 588, Bountiful, Utah 84010.

2) Talk to others in your family

Chances are pretty good that someone in your family shares your interest in genealogy. If you ask around, you will
probably find that a cousin, or perhaps a great-aunt, has already done some genealogy research. Recently I received an
e-mail from a cousin twice removed that illustrates this: he contacted me to see if I had any information on the ancestors
of our mutual great grandfather. I sent him copies of what I had (which goes back about seven generations). He, in turn,
had some wonderful material to share with me, including a tape-recorded interview with his grandmother where she recalls
life on the old farm at the turn of the century! My cousin and I are now working together to fill in various gaps in our
family tree.

I should caution you, however, that the work done by other family members may not always
be accurate. They may have misspelled names or relied on family stories that have been passed down from generation to
generation. Keep a healthy skepticism, especially if no sources are cited in the material that you obtain from other
family members.

Contacting your family members about your genealogy project is alsoa great way to
reestablish contact with distant relatives that you may not have seen for several years. Even if they do not have any
informationto share with you, reestablishing contact is a rewarding experience in and of itself.

Another reason to talk to your family members is to get as much information as you can
from the oldest members of your family before they pass away. They can often identify who's who in old photographs and
can remember many details and stories that will soon be lost. Spend some time with these relatives and ask detailed
questions about your family history. Use a tape-recorder or video camera if possible! At the bottom of this page I have
listed two links to web pages that contain questionnaires that can help you prepare for interviewing family members.

Finally, make sure you look for clues in old newspaper clippings, handwritten notes on
the back of old photographs, notations in old family bibles, initials and dates on silverware, etc. You can get valuable
leads from such sources!

3) Keep a research log

As your work progresses, you will quickly start to accumulate a great deal of material: old
photographs, photocopies of birth certificates, death certificates, census records, etc. To keep track of where you have
beenand what you have done, you should keep a research log where you enter information about which census records you have
already looked at, which birth certificates you have ordered copies of, etc. Start keeping such a log from the very outset
of your project -- if you don't start now you will probably have to go back and redo some of your work!

Many genealogists keep their research log in a three-ring binder with dividers for each
member of the family that they are researching. (Don't store precious old letters and photographs in this binder -- you
could accidentally misplace it or drop it on a wet sidewalk!)

4) Develop a plan

You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great- great-
grandparents, etc. It will take several years of research to obtain detailed information on all of these ancestors and the
various branches of your family. When you start out, you should therefore focus on one or two branches. You can use your
time better and be more effective if you have a focused plan to guide you in your research.

5) Family Group Sheets

Fill out a "Family Group Sheet" for each person that you are researching, starting with
yourself, then your parents, and so on, working your way back, generation by generation. (You can obtain these sheets from
your local LDS Family History Center). When you fill out the "Family Group Sheet" keep the following rules in mind:

Write dates using the following format: 07 April 1922 instead of 4/7/92. This prevents numbers from getting jumbled.
One important note to remember: Norwegians write dates "backwards": 4/7/1922 means July 4th, 1922, not April 7th, 1922!

Write all place names in the following order: Township/City, County, State, Country. For Norwegian place names, start
with Farm name, Parish, "Kommune" (municipality), or City, followed by "fylke" (province/county) and country.

Don't mix the children of one marriage with the children of another marriage! Use separate Family Group Sheets for
each family unit.

6) Visit your local library

Even if you decide to purchase a book on how to get started in genealogy,you should still
visit your local library. Most local libraries have a genealogy collection that contains family histories that have been
written about local families. If you are lucky, your family history may be one of these!

At your local library you can also ask the librarian to do an on-line search of the
holdings of other libraries to see if your family history is available at another library. This type of on-line search is
called an OCLC WorldCat Firstsearch(r), and taps into a vast database. Many Norwegian local history books (bygdebooks),
for example, are listed in this database and are available through inter library loan.

I have had great success with the OCLC Worldcat Firstsearch(r). In 1995, for example, I
wanted to find out the fate of my great, great grandfather's brother who emigrated from Norway to the US in the 1890's.
I did an OCLC Worldcat Firstsearch(r) and discovered that one of his descendants had written a genealogy book on the
descendants of this brother! Within ten days I had obtained the book through inter library loan and could read a
comprehensive account of this branch of my family.

7) Review available biographies that may contain information on your ancestors

Norwegian immigration to the U.S. is a topic that has generated an abundance of books and
articles. It is quite possible that your ancestors are mentioned in one or more of these resources. It is therefore well
worth your time and effort to review these. Although some of these resources are in Norwegian,you will find many that are
in English. At the end of this article I have listed the most useful biography books that I know of. You can obtain copies
of these at your local library through the Inter Library Loan program.

8) Visit your local LDS Family History Center

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - LDS (Mormons) believe that they
and their ancestors can be together in heaven as longas each person has been baptized into the Mormon faith. For this
reason, Mormons trace their ancestors and baptize these ancestors in special temple ceremonies. As a result of this
religious belief, the LDS church has, over the years, developed the largest genealogy collection in the world. This vast
collection of books, microfiches, and microfilms is made available to the public at numerous Family History Centers around
the world. You do not have to be a Mormon to use this collection, nor will anyone try to convert you when you visit an
LDS Family History Center. I have found the reference librarians and other volunteers at these Centers to be extremely
knowledgeable and helpful. To find out if there is an LDS Family History Center near you take a look in your local Yellow
Pages under "Churches- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints".

While you are at the Family History Center you should also review the LDS International
Genealogical Index (IGI). This is a database on CD-rom disks that contains several hundred thousand names and family lines
that genealogists have researched and submitted to the LDS.

9) Search through the available on-line genealogy surname databases:

In addition to visiting an LDS Family History Center, you should also take a look at the
various web sites that have databases of surnames that others are researching. On my web page I have collected several
links to such surname databases and query lists. These include:

Roots Surname List

Geneanet

DIS-Norge's database (This database is in Norway and is only availableto members. (The annual membership fee, however,
is only about $ 30.00). The database is accessible both in Norwegian and English.

10) When should I "leap the pond" and begin researching Norwegian records?

Since I started using the Internet for Norwegian - American genealogy research I have often
seen messages like the following being posted to the newsgroups soc.genealogy.nordic and no.slekt:

I am seeking information about my great grandfather, Ole Anderson, who immigrated to the U.S. from Norway in the
1880's. I think he came from around Oslo."

There are two problems with such a post:

There were thousands of Norwegian immigrants named Ole Anderson. A patronymic naming system was used in rural Norway
prior to about 1900 and as a result it is impossible to identify a person such as Ole Anderson without additional
information about him. As you will find out, fellow genealogists from Norway are always willing to help with leads, but a
posting such as this is almost meaningless! (See my article "Norwegian Naming Practices").

U.S. Naturalization records would probably contain the information necessary to pinpoint where in Norway this Ole
Anderson came from. (I say "probably" because prior to 1906 the details contained in such records varied considerably
depending on where these records were processed).

Genealogy is a hobby that requires us to progress carefully backwards in time, step by step,
generation by generation. This is especially true with Norwegian - American genealogy. You can save a great deal of time
(and frustration) by gathering all of the records that are available about your immigrant ancestors after their arrival
here in the United States before you start researching Norwegian records. Once you have examined these records from the
United States (Naturalization records, Census records, Homestead records, old letters and photographs, family bibles,
etc.) you can "leap over the pond" to continue your research in Norway, confident that you have the necessary information
to tackle the problems that the patronymic naming system will present you with. By that time you will hopefully have
discovered not only where in Norway your ancestors came from, but also the correct spelling of your ancestors' names.
These names were, in many cases, changed upon arrival here in the U.S.

11) Conclusion

There are many resources available to help you in your genealogy research. Some of these are
on the Internet, others are available at your local library and at LDS Family History Centers. On my web site you will
find links to various research guides that explain how to use U.S. Census records, how to obtain Vital records and
Naturalization records, etc. While new genealogy sources are being added to the Internet every day, you will find that at
the present time almost all of your research will occur at such places as the local LDS Family History Center. You will
quickly find that your fellow genealogists are some of the friendliest, most helpful people you will ever meet. On that
note, I will leave you to you new hobby and wish you Lykke til! -- Best of luck!

John Follesdal

Biographical sources:

As I mentioned earlier, there is a wealth of books and articles on the history of Norwegian
immigration to the U.S. Some of these sources contain a great deal of genealogy information. Three of these sources
deserve specialmention: Martin Ulvestad's Norge in Amerika med kart, Gerhard B.Naeseth's Norwegian immigrants
to the United States: a biographical directory, 1825-1850, and The Andrew A. Rowberg's 1914 - 1978 Biographical
File.

Martin Ulvestad collected biographical information on thousands of Norwegian Americans
and published his collection in 1901 in a book titled Norge in Amerika med kart. This book is now out of print,
but several large genealogy libraries have a copy of it:

The late professor Gerhard B. Naeseth also collected an enormous number of biographies
which were published in his book Norwegian immigrants to the United States: a biographical directory, 1825-1850.
This book is also available at many large genealogy libraries:

Beginning in 1914, Andrew A. Rowberg searched through Norwegian - American newspapers and
other publications to find obituaries, wedding and birth announcements, etc. His collection of 125,000 items is contained
in a set of 1,600 microfiche, arranged alphabetically by name. The set, called TheAndrew A. Rowberg Biographical File,
1914 - 1978, is published by the Norwegian - American Historical Association.

Here are some of the many other publications that may contain information on your
Norwegian ancestors:

U.S. wide sources:

Scandinavian immigrants in New York, 1630-1674; with appendices on Scandinavians in Mexico and South America,
1532-1640, Scandinavians in Canada, 1619-1620, Some Scandinavians in New York in the eighteenth century, German immigrants
in New York, 1630-1674, 1916 Evjen, John Oluf, 1874 - , Minneapolis, Minn., K. C. Holter publishing company, 1916.
LC: F130.S2 E9

The Divided heart: Scandinavian immigrant artists, 1850-1950. October 1 - November 7, 1982, University Gallery,
University of Minnesota. 1982 University of Minnesota, University Gallery. Minneapolis: The Gallery, [1982]
LC:N6538.S32 D58 1982

Norwegian sailors on the Great Lakes; a study in the history of American inland transportation, 1928 Gjerset,
Knut, 1865- Northfield, Minn., The Norwegian-American historical association, 1928. LC: VK23.7.G5

A history of the Norwegians of Illinois; 1905 a concise record of the struggles and achievements of the early
settlers together with a narrative of what is now being done by the Norwegian-Americans of Illinois in the development of
their adopted country ... [Chicago, IL], J. Anderson publishing company [c1905] LC: F550.S2 S8

Biographic sketches of the early original settlers in Rush Creek valley, Winona county, Minnesota. 1941 Johnson,
Syvert H.,1869- LC:F612.W7 J6

The immigrants' trek; a detailed history of the Lake Hendricks colony in Brookings County, Dakota Territory, from
1873-1881. 1929 Sandro, Gustav O. LC: F655 .S21

Manitowoc-skogen: a biographical and genealogical directory of the residents of Norwegian birth and descent in
Manitowoc and Kewaunee counties in Wisconsin from the first settlement to 1900. 1994 by Robert A. Bjerke. Manitowoc,
Wis.: Dobbs, 1994. LC: F587.M2 B48 1994

Men of the cloth and the social-cultural fabric of the Norwegian ethnic community in North Dakota. 1980 Duane
Rodell Lindberg. New York: Arno Press, 1980. LC: F645.S2 L56 1980

Song of the pines; a story of Norwegian lumbering in Wisconsin,1949 by Walter and Marion Havighurst. Illus. by
Richard Floethe. Philadelphia, J. C. Winston Co. [1949] LC: PZ7.H311 So

Early records of the LeSueur River Church of Waseca and Steele counties, Minnesota. 1993 transcribed, translated,
and indexed by George W. Anderson, Jr. Brooklyn Park, MN: Park Genealogical Books, c1993. LC: F612.W17 L41993

Then & now in Clover: the stories and memories of Clover Township as told by the people who lived them,
1902-1975. 1975 sketching by Irene Schmidt. Askov, Minn.: American Pub. Co., c1975. LC: F614.C56 T33